MAL Ep. 10
This session, our heroes defused a haunt, tangled with a nasty devil captain, and began exploring an abandoned water temple. Details include 1) The party told Seela about the vampire necromancer they fought, and her possible motivations. Seela noted that thus far three of Chavalk's allies seem to be individuals who feel wronged for one reason or another. 2) The party was rejoined by their old friend Khirg, who they caught up on goings-on in Mendham Wood. Khirg, for his part, said he was here looking for a "rogue fey lord" named Shyra, who a colleague named Tanya had come to the forest to investigate. Seela recalled that Liria said they had initially believed Chavalk to be a being of fey "like Shyra," rather than a demon. 3) While using clairaudience to talk with Seven, Zadkiel noticed she described the vampire necromancer as "winged," which does not match the appearance of the vampire necromancer you fought. She elaborated to describe the vampire as a pale, dark-haired woman with crow's wings. The vampire you encountered was a pale dark-haired woman, but did not have any wings. 4) Red used Commune With Nature to scout the landscape. She confirmed Liria's story with evidence of extensive wildfire burn scars, confirmed that there were many unnatural creatures and/or magics in the forest, and identified two "hotspots" of unnatural activity, one of which was the Water Temple Liria had told you about. 5) Adriel decided to try to find a potions shop out in the middle of nowhere. She didn't succeed, but did get directions to a hermit dwarven wizard living in the woods. Visiting him, they learned that he was not an artificer and could not help Adriel with brewing potions; rather he is a necromancer. His name is Barken, and he clearly isn't comfortable interacting socially with other living people. He did trade Red a scroll of Speak With Dead in exchange for some gourmet honey. 6) Over Red's objections, Jon told the necromancer that the group was trying to get in contact with Jendarion's dead wife. Barken said he didn't know her. 7) The party moved on to the Water Temple. As they approached the temple, though, a large Haunt activated, spooking Adriel and Seela into fleeing and producing powerful wind effects that only Red was able to move forward against. Zadkiel explained that Haunts can be neutralized by positive energy like healing or turning, but that this was a gestalt haunt and would require either the cooperation of multiple clerics or the intervention of a necromancer. The party decided to go back and fetch Barken. 8) While they were being affected by the haunt, a tuning peg broke off of Jon's lute, seemingly for no good reason. He's going to need to get that repaired before his next gig at Ruby's. 9) Returning with Barken, the necromancer was able to neutralize the haunt, though he characterized it as the biggest haunt he'd ever seen and warned that it would just respawn in some unpredictable number of hours unless the party did something to destroy it. (Haunts in Malachi are similar to the canonical ones in Pathfinder, with a few tweaks on my part to accommodate the different game system and gameworld.) Since it's not sentient, he was unable to talk to it, but offered to ask around on the Other Side to see if he could learn more about it, and passed through the Veil. 10) Approaching the Water Temple again, the party discovered the mouth of the cave blocked by a magical slab and four stone statues with different colored eyes. The party quickly identified them as elemental guardians of water, air, earth, and fire. Meanwhile Aler found a dilapidated magic circle in an overgrown rock garden. The party activated the statues by placing offerings of the proper elements in their mouths, causing the slab to roll aside. 11) At this point the party was attacked by monstrous figured Jon identified as Keres, a kind of devil associated with the domain of violent death. They were apparently damage-resistant to everyone's weapons but the force bow. With the aid of Khirg, a panther guardian from the Elemental Plane of Water, and the unexpectedly bow-proficient Seela, the devils were finally defeated. 12) On the corpse of the slain Ker Captain was found an unsigned letter informing someone named Eleni that Chavalk does not need you guys alive-- that your curses have "already served their purpose," but not to go out of their way to kill you, as "the girl may yet prove useful." There was a note at the bottom in another script authorizing the use of lethal force, signed by "Ker Eleni" and dated "14Apr844." 13) Zadkiel pointed out that 14 April was BEFORE the party rescued Bay, so the "girl" referred to in the letter could not be Bay. Red compared the handwriting to the other letters the group had collected and found that not only did it match Harasket's letter, but also PETROS' letter. The group was very confused by this, and conjectured about it for some time. 14) The water panther was affable when Jon spoke to him in Aquan, declining to provide his name but identifying himself as an elemental guardian summoned by the opening of the temple. Once assured that Adriel was not a demon, he gave permission to enter the temple, saying that it was open to all worshippers, but that no one had been here in some time. He had not himself witnessed the dragon attack or the haunt, but identified the power of the temple as coming from the river spirit Sendor and concluded that perhaps the haunt was related to Sendor's rage over his daughter Essily's murder. 15) The party found that Angara, Blue, and the horses were unable to enter the cave; neither was Red while in dinosaur form. The water panther explained that the cave mouth was warded to keep animals of the forest from wandering in and possibly becoming trapped or injured in the druids' absence. The water panther offered to stay with the animals and watch over them while the party entered the temple, which they accepted. 16) The party descended into an abandoned sanctuary with crumbling plaster. From the plaster and the dust on the floor, Aler deduced that no one could have been in here for at least a month. The whole room radiated magic, with obvious standouts being an altar, a magically barred door, a huge bell, a fountain, a 2' diameter glass chute behind a magic grate, and a pool of mana Seela identified as a scrying pool. There were also several magical icons and inlaid gemstones. Seela stated that the more magic a place was imbued with, the more inherent power it accrued, and that the magic of this temple was therefore greater than the sum of magic items embedded in it. She cautioned against any wanton destruction of a place with so much ambient magic, as it may fight back. 17) Zadkiel decided to cast Purify Food And Drink on the fountain, which was not running and had stagnant water in it. Jon decide to right a toppled urn on the dais and refill it withe the pearls that had spilled out of it. 18) Red used Stone Tell to glean information from the stones of the temple. She received many useful impressions from the stone, although none with any visual detail. The last time people were in this temple, they apparently entered the room though the chute and then filed up the stairs to the cave. In another impression, people in the cave rang the bell, the chute grate opened, and the people entered the chute and slid down. In a third, a person activated the scry pool, which flared up into a blue column of water, which the person then put their head into. 19) After much dickering, Red decided to go down the water chute, with a rope tied around her waist and the intention of using Jon's message spell to relay to him what she found there. Red landed safely in another room of the abandoned temple with no enemies in sight, but the chute snapped shut behind her, blocking her from Messaging Jon. (This is only a cantrip, albeit a very useful one, and fails as a method of communication often. Jon will already be used to that as a possibility. You can use one of Seven's more powerful Sending scrolls as backup next session.) 20) The room Red landed in appears to be a disused social hall, with a magical silver piano, a large koi pond, and many tables and chairs. There is a small water mephit tending the pool, who waved at Red and squeaked something in Aquan as she entered. Red used the last minute of her Stone Tell spell to get an impression of human activity in this room, which included walking back and forth among the tables and piano music reverberating around the room. And there we broke for the day. Onward!